BLOOMSBURG, Pa. — You've heard of the Spice Girls, now meet the Spice Brothers, seventh grade students who hoped to win over the judges with their hot sauce at Bloomsburg University's Husky Dog Pound competition.
"First, we start with our quality ingredients, so all-natural ingredients like peppers, garlic, and other things that are grown in the garden," Peyton Wendel said.
The Husky Dog Pound is structured like the television show Shark Tank.
"Students prepare a business idea, a product, app, or service. They do a three-minute pitch, and then they have a five-minute question and answer with the judges. The judges score them, and the top 30 teams win prizes," said Christina Force, the Husky Dog Pound coordinator.
This is the seventh year for the event, which featured more than 500 students from all over Pennsylvania.
A group of freshmen from State College Area High School created the "Safe Pod" based on sustainable period products.
"It's made out of recycled polypyrene so that it's sustainable, and it's also fairly cheap to produce and fairly cheap to buy so smaller schools with less budgets can still afford the same level of comfort for their students," Celeste Vanness said.
Around 200 groups gave presentations.
"They learn how to present to professionals and answer questions, but they also spark their creativity for entrepreneurship and business," Force said.
The students say they learned a lot.
"You're learning how to cook, make stuff, and how to run a business," Wendel said.
"We are learning to push ourselves to make the best product we can and bring attention to what we believe," Vanness said.
After the presentations, the top teams were awarded prizes.